PHP SimpleXML parse file, getting only a string

Question

Yesterday I had already a question to parsing an xml document in php. Now the parsing works kind of, but I only get everything in a string, not an object.

My code:

$xml = simplexml_load_file('file.xml');
debug($xml); // debug from CakePHP

Empty output, as I learned from my last post:

$xml = $xml->asXML();
debug($xml);

Now I only get the output as following:

I do get the XML code, but everything in a string with ->asXML(). How can I get everything as a XML object? I tried to use the string with simplexml_load_string($xml); but that just outputs the same as in the first screenshot.

Maybe there is a problem because the XML starts with <asx:abap></asx> (namespace)?

If you want, I can upload my XML so you can test it.

Edit 1

I realized, that the first two elements in my XML are namespaced (<asx:abap> and asx:values). As soon as I renamed them to asx only, everything worked fine.

Edit 2

Here my XML for you to test.

Downloadlink to XML

Indeed. The file won't be parsed correctly because the first element is namespaced. As soon as I replaced <asx:abap></asx:abap> with <asx></asx>, I get everything as an object. How can I fix that? The XMLs are generated by SAP and search/replace before parsing is not really a nice thing. — Matt Backslash
– Matt Backslash, Commented Feb 10, 2016 at 10:56
Can't replicate. Upload example minimal XML that demonstrates the problem. — mhawke
– mhawke, Commented Feb 10, 2016 at 11:56
You have the right object - you can see that, because your debug starts object(SimpleXMLElement) - you just don't have the right debug function to view it - it looks like it's based on print_r, which doesn't know how to display SimpleXMLElement objects properly. Try github.com/IMSoP/simplexml_debug — IMSoP
– IMSoP, Commented Feb 10, 2016 at 18:55

Megha Patel · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-10 11:25:25Z

1

Your test.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> 
<rss> 
  <channel> 
    <item> 
        <title><![CDATA[Tom & Jerry]]></title> 
    </item> 
  </channel> 
</rss>

To load xml form file use following fucntion

$xml = simplexml_load_file('test.xml');

 // echo does the casting for you 
echo $xml->channel->item->title; 

// but vardump (or print_r) not! 
var_dump($xml->channel->item->title); 

// so cast the SimpleXML Element to 'string' solve this issue 
var_dump((string) $xml->channel->item->title);

for more info see on this link http://php.net/manual/en/simplexml.examples-basic.php

answered Feb 10, 2016 at 11:25

Megha Patel

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2 Comments

ArrowHead Over a year ago

I believe he doesn't need strings, he clearly said it is in string and he wants it in object.

IMSoP Over a year ago

@ArrowHead The OP wanted to access the XML as an object; this shows how. The string the OP didn't want was ->asXML(), which turns the whole object back into the string it was just parsed from. However, it is a little more complicated than this example, because it uses namespaces, and therefore needs an appropriate call to the ->children() method.

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